Client Case Study
StayWell
Building a team from scratch? Hire a recruiting firm with a bulletproof process.
A typical search project for our firm entails 1-2 hires of candidates with a hard to find skill set. The job requirements are complex, and we go through comprehensive due diligence to ensure the candidates go beyond checking all the boxes before presenting them to the client.
But what if you have to build an entire team in a short amount of time?
That’s what happened with StayWell.
Ramping up quickly, without losing quality
The challenge: In mid-2017 StayWell got an infusion of capital and needed to expand its sales force quickly to take advantage of market conditions. They needed to build an entire team – 18 positions in three months. To complicate matters, the hiring period overlapped with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, when people are often out of the office, so we really needed to do it in 8 weeks by the time we got the contract details ironed out. With just two people in charge of hiring, we needed a strong process in place to meet the tight project deadlines.
We cast a wide net to ensure we are getting the best qualified candidates, leveraging our network and conducting thorough candidate screening before setting up client phone interviews. At that point we facilitate calls with at least three candidates for every two that get face-to-face interviews to net a single hire. To end up with 18 hires, we needed to plan for a minimum of 54 phone screens and 36 in-person interviews.
Facing a tight deadline, we had to think creatively and strategically about how to manage the project without giving up quality in candidates and the process.
“We needed a comprehensive process to enable multiple team members in different locations to all participate and get the flow of candidates moving through the pipeline. We were starting from scratch. No one was even trained on how to interview before this project.”
– Ken Webb, StayWell’s SVP and GM for the project
Here are some tactics that helped make the project a success:
Remove barriers: Working with our client, we identified the key stakeholders to comprise the interview committee and blocked off their calendars for preselected interview days to avoid unnecessary scheduling conflicts that could delay the process. In this case, our typical 5+ person committee was trimmed to reduce the number of interview slots.
Identify efficiencies: For the client’s initial phone interviews, we scheduled single group video calls with the committee, rather than individual ones to save time. One of the two hiring managers was on each call, but we divided the calls across the committee so no one was overtaxed.
Maintain focus: We developed a concise set of interview questions and a scorecard with clear metrics, so that each committee member had a clear set or priorities to evaluate each candidate rather than a general approach of “what did you think?”
This was an important tool that helped the client be more efficient about the information gathered during an interview. Instead of having each committee member ask the same questions, they could review what information was already gathered so that they could move on to other questions or dig deeper on a key issue.
“Each committee member would score the candidate online and then we could compare results. Everything came together very quickly to help us make efficient decisions.”
– Ken Webb, StayWell’s SVP and GM for the project
Securing success: Committee members ranked each candidate immediately after their interview, providing a clear direction on whether he or she should move forward.
Weekly client calls reviewed progress, enabling us to quickly address issues and ensure we provided the right pipeline of candidates. To avoid losing preferred candidates to other opportunities, offers were made within 3 days of the on-site interviews, rather than waiting 2+ weeks to get feedback from a large committee.
“I was really impressed with the way ASG came together as part of our team. They were incredibly collaborative. They set expectations really well with the team and with our senior leaders. This was an impossible task and they found a way to get it done.”
– Ken Webb, StayWell’s SVP and GM for the project